A publication from the Ministry of Defence, free in PDF format, summarizes from its beginning the great maritime epic of our country to date. The history of Spain will not be the same without the sea.

However, there is no existing collective memory about the brilliant succession of episodes and achievements that defined the Hispanic Monarchy.  Perhaps, and to be fair, we should say that the history of the world would not be the same without the Spanish galleons that reached the Americas, circumnavigated the world or were able to stop the Ottoman Empire in Lepanto from swallowing Europe.  It is only fair to give them the credit.  This does not mean we openly justify the long predominance of Spain in the oceans of the world.

In order to summarize it, the Ministry of Defence has just published a very resourceful book, beautifully illustrated, attractive and informative, that travels through the history of the Spanish Armada since its origins to the present time.  (It can be obtained here, free of charge, on PDF format. The elegant paper copy costs 25 Euros).  As pointed by the author of this work, Admiral Juan Rodriguez Garat, “we wanted to do something thorough, what really bothered us is that all existing stories finish in 1898 or the Civil War, as if nothing else had transpired during the last 80 years.”

Read more here: ABC CULTURA